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Introduction

The use of drugs for recreational and nonmedical purposes is called drug abuse. The term refers to the use of illegal substances, such as cocaine and marijuana, as well as the use of legitimate drugs—that is, prescription and over-the-counter drugs—in excessive quantities or for nonmedical purposes. Commonly abused substances range from agents such as anabolic steroids, which some athletes use to boost their strength and performance, to psychotropic, or mind-altering, substances that produce changes in mood and feelings.

Some mood-changing drugs induce relaxation or sleep. Others induce feelings of exhilaration. All affect the nervous system and all can cause emotional change. Research suggests that addictive drugs and drugs that are commonly abused increase levels of dopamine—an organic compound that inhibits the transmission of nerve impulses—in the brain.

The temporary sense of well-being that is produced by such drugs fades when the effects of the drug have worn off, and users are faced with the same problems that plagued them previously. They may then take another dose of the drug rather than endure the pain and trouble of dealing with the original problems. When this happens, the users are said to have acquired a psychological dependence on the drug.

Overuse of some drugs causes addiction, in which the drug user becomes physically dependent upon the drug.Without the drug, the user becomes very ill. For an addict, the need for the drug becomes twofold—to re-experience the sense of well-being it imparts and to avoid the physical pain caused by not taking it. This physiological need for the drug leads addicts to direct all of their energies to getting more of the drug, making drug use part of their daily routines.

In addition to harming the individual user, drug abuse is a serious public health problem that affects the entire community. In the United States, drug abuse results in roughly 40 million serious illnesses or injuries each year. Globally, the World Health Organization estimated that 230 million people had used an illegal drug at least once in 2010.

History of Drug Abuse

The nonmedical use of drugs and related substances has a long history. In the United States, opium abuse became an issue after the Civil War, when hundreds of thousands of soldiers became addicted to the morphine and opium that had been used as painkillers during the war. Throughout the 19th century, the ready availability of opiates (opium and opium-related substances) in patent medicines led to widespread use and addiction, especially among women of all social classes. Laudanum, a highly addictive mixture of opium and alcohol used to ease pain, soothe frayed nerves, and induce sleep, was especially popular in the United States and Europe.

In the early 20th century, the stimulant cocaine was an ingredient in many common tonics and patent medicines. The subsequent abuse of the drug led President William Taft in 1910 to declare it a national threat, and its nonmedical use was banned in 1914. Use of mood-changing drugs such as barbiturates and stimulants began to increase in the 1950s as these substances became more available through both legal and illegal channels. The use of hallucinogens such as marijuana also began to increase in the 1950s and became widespread in the 1960s.

Commonly Abused Drugs

Opium and Related Drugs

J. Fujishima--B.W. Halstead, World Life Research Institute

The opium poppy contains a narcotic drug called opium—the raw material for some of the most powerful painkillers medicine can provide. Opium itself, opium derivatives (opiates) like morphine and codeine, and synthetic chemicals that resemble opium (called opioids) are prescribed for the relief of extreme pain. Opium can also be converted into the dangerous drug heroin.

The effect of opium-related drugs depends to a certain extent on the user. Pain-free persons may simply feel dizzy and nauseated after first taking such a drug. For most susceptible people, however, a dose of an opium-related drug makes worries seem distant. This carefree feeling may be followed by a period of stupor. A severe depression commonly follows the stupor, and a regular abuser will want another dose of the drug to ward off this depression.

If people take any opium-related drug often enough, they become physically dependent, or addicted, to the drug. If they stop taking it, they become very ill with a withdrawal syndrome.

If they are treated with proper medication, the withdrawal syndrome is said to be like influenza, but without such help it can be agonizing. Many drug habits are maintained to avoid this syndrome. (See alsohabit and addiction.)

Heroin addiction presents a special danger. Other opium-related drugs are obtained illegally from medical supplies. Heroin, however, is not used for medicinal purposes, and the criminals who produce it are not subject to any quality controls. The heroin they peddle is usually contaminated with microorganisms and diluted with other substances. This means that purchasers never know just how much heroin is in the sample they are buying or whether they are receiving an unusually pure sample on which they may overdose. (See alsoopium.)

During the 1970s and 1980s the drug market was flooded by so-called synthetic heroins. The most popular synthetic was fentanyl and its variants, including alpha-methyl-fentanyl (AMF), which numerous users died from, and 3-methyl-fentanyl (3MF), which was reportedly 1,000 to 3,000 times more potent than the purest form of heroin.

The most effective form of treatment for addiction to heroin and other narcotics is the synthetic narcotic drug methadone. The drug itself is extremely addictive, but when it is given to heroin addicts on a daily basis, it prevents withdrawal syndrome and suppresses the drug hunger for heroin. The addict is then gradually weaned from the methadone addiction. (See alsonarcotic and sedative.)

Sleep-inducing Drugs

Several types of chemicals induce sleep and cause intoxication. These chemicals also cause physical and psychological dependence. The group includes ethyl alcohol, barbiturates, methaqualone, and many related sedatives. Alcohol causes special problems because susceptible people can buy it legally. (See alsoalcoholism.)

Barbiturates, also known as “downers,” are prescribed, usually in pill form, by doctors for insomnia and nervous tension. It is very easy to become addicted to them, and they cause severe depression. Those taking barbiturates can easily lose track of how many they have taken. This can lead to a fatal overdose. In addition, combining alcohol and barbiturates frequently leads to coma or death. Once physical dependence on alcohol or barbiturates has been established, withdrawal without medical help may cause seizures, delirium, and, unlike withdrawal from opium-related drugs, even death.

In high doses, methaqualone, commonly called quaaludes, resembles the barbiturates in both symptoms and severity. In low to medium doses it causes a form of intoxication similar to that from alcohol, including slowed reflexes and loss of judgment and inhibitions. (See alsonarcotic and sedative.)

Stimulants

U.S. Department of Justice

A class of stimulants called amphetamines, also known as “uppers” or “speed,” produce wakefulness and alertness. Medically, they are used to cope with sleep disorders, to help control appetite, and to fight depression.

Amphetamines do not cause physical dependence, so withdrawal is not dangerous, but psychological dependence does occur. Some people develop a barbiturate-amphetamine cycle: they need barbiturates to go to sleep and amphetamines to wake up.

Some people take amphetamines to increase their energy. Fatigue, however, has a biological purpose. It prevents people from overextending themselves and thereby damaging their bodies by too much activity. Amphetamines also impair judgment. Some people take amphetamines for a carefree feeling similar to that produced by opium-related drugs. At high doses, amphetamines can increase blood pressure enough to cause sudden death. The excessive use of amphetamines at high doses can cause a severe psychosis similar to a form of schizophrenia.

Cocaine, derived from the coca plant (Erythroxylum coca), originally came to the attention of Western medicine because it can kill pain. Cocaine has stimulant and euphoriant properties that cause extreme psychological and sometimes physical dependence. In the 1980s a new preparation of cocaine appeared—called crack. Smoking crack cocaine produces an intense but very short-lived euphoria that is extremely addicting. Prolonged use of any form of cocaine can cause severe personality disturbances and sleep loss. Individuals who are addicted to cocaine may experience severe delusions, hallucinations, and death (seecocaine).

Stimulants have long been used by athletes to enhance performance, though the use of such drugs sometimes causes heart damage. For example, in the 19th century professional cyclists used strychnine, and in the 1960s the deaths of several cyclists were linked to the use of amphetamines. In the 1990s and early 21st century there was increasing concern over the use of stimulants as performance-enhancing drugs by athletes. In particular, the herbal stimulant ephedrine (which is derived from the ephedra plant), a supplement used by millions of people to treat allergies as well as weight problems, was thought to boost energy levels, and its use became widespread among professional athletes. However, ephedrine was shown to have severe side effects, including heart palpitations, strokes, insomnia, tremors, and psychiatric and gastrointestinal problems. The drug became linked with the deaths of scores of users (including several professional athletes), with its critics charging that it heated up the body by increasing the user’s heart rate and metabolism and aggravating any cardiovascular problems that the user may knowingly or unknowingly suffer.

Anabolic Steroids

In addition to using stimulants, a growing number of athletes and bodybuilders began experimenting with and heavily using anabolic steroids in the second half of the 20th century. Anabolic steroids are derivatives or synthetic models of the male sex hormone testosterone that stimulates muscle growth. By the 1980s the abuse of anabolic steroids had spread to members of the general public—particularly adolescent males obsessed with improving their appearance. In the late 1990s and early 21st century, concern centered on designer steroids such as tetrahydrogestrinone (THG) and androstenedione (“andro”) and their derivatives. The latter steroid could be purchased over the counter in the United States but was prohibited by the International Olympic Committee and several major sporting organizations, and it was used widely among professional athletes. The use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs, known as “doping,” is strictly prohibited by international sporting agencies, and in many international competitions athletes are now tested to see if they are using those substances. If athletes test positive for such drugs, they will often have their awards taken away and their eligibility to participate in future competitions revoked.

Experts agree that anabolic steroids can have harmful—sometimes life-threatening—long-term effects. In men, the use of large amounts of anabolic steroids can cause the body’s natural production of testosterone to decrease or even to stop completely and can result in breast development (gynecomastia). In young, physically immature users, anabolic steroids can halt the natural lengthening of bones, thereby stunting growth. Women who use anabolic steroids may develop masculine characteristics such as increased facial and body hair, male-pattern baldness, changes in or loss of the menstrual cycle, and a deepened voice.

Abuse of anabolic steroids produces other side effects, some of which may be permanent. Prolonged use of anabolic steroids leads to jaundice, heart disease, liver and kidney damage, and other serious disorders; steroids, when injected, increase the risk of HIV and hepatitis. Users may also suffer high blood pressure and severe acne and exhibit overly aggressive behavior, depression, or more serious psychiatric disorders that generally disappear within a few weeks after steroid use is halted.

Hallucinogens

A large class of drugs is generally known as hallucinogens. These drugs produce psychological effects such as dreamlike illusions and heightened sensations. However, hallucinogens also can produce severe mood swings, feelings of strangeness, disturbed thinking, perceptual distortions, and delusions, symptoms that echo mental disorders like schizophrenia.

Cactu

LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) is one of the most powerful hallucinogens known. Drugs with similar effects are mescaline (found in the peyote cactus), psilocybin (from certain mushrooms), and certain drugs from the bark and seeds of other plants.

Many hallucinogenic chemicals can be artificially synthesized. One of these, PCP (phencyclidine), or “angel dust,” emerged as a leading street hallucinogen in North America in the mid-1970s. Developed in 1956 as an anesthetic, PCP was discontinued for human use because of its severe and unpredictable side effects. In the mid-1980s PCP was largely replaced in the drug underground by crack cocaine, though its use has continued, particularly in urban areas.

When people take even a small amount of a hallucinogenic drug, they may experience great distortions in what they perceive. Users hope that the disorientation will be mystical or pleasurable, but the actual outcome cannot be foreseen. Often users are terrified or feel that people are plotting to harm them. Some users feel invulnerable or invisible and may be hurt when they try to fly or to walk into heavy traffic. Furthermore, the same distorted feelings may recur days or months later for no apparent reason.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

The flowering tops and leaves of the hemp plant, known scientifically as Cannabis sativa, are processed to produce the hallucinogen marijuana. Very little reliable information about its long-term physical effects is available, other than the fact that heavy long-term use can damage the lungs and cause mental changes. Marijuana is not physically addictive, but users may develop a psychological dependence. Chemically, marijuana is usually considered a mild hallucinogen, though it was classified as a dangerous drug in many jurisdictions in the 1970s. In the 1980s and 1990s, extensive medical research uncovered various benefits of cannabis and THC, its active ingredient. Marijuana was found to decrease internal eye pressure for sufferers of glaucoma, to reduce the nausea and vomiting associated with chemotherapy for AIDS and cancer patients, to reduce muscle pain in multiple-sclerosis patients, and to prevent seizures for some sufferers of epilepsy. Some researchers have also suggested that cannabis might prove useful in treating depression, appetite loss, high blood pressure, anxiety, migraine headaches, and various gynecological and menstrual problems. Beginning in the 1990s, several U.S. states legalized cannabis for medicinal use, and various countries, particularly in western Europe, moved to decriminalize or legalize its use. (See alsohallucinogen.)

Inhalants

A growing problem in many countries, especially among teenagers and even middle-schoolers, is inhalant, or solvent, abuse. It involves everyday products such as glue, permanent marking pens, shoe polish, paint, or aerosol sprays, which contain volatile substances (substances that vaporize on contact with air) that produce mind-altering effects when inhaled. Commonly known as “sniffing,” “huffing,” or “bagging,” solvent abuse involves inhaling fumes directly through the nose or mouth in a variety of ways. Users may sniff fumes from a bottle or a bag containing the substance or inhale the fumes from a rag soaked with a chemical. Sometimes aerosols such as computer cleaners are sprayed directly into the nose or mouth.

The effect of inhalant abuse is similar to that of drinking too much alcohol—slurred speech, a loss of inhibition, euphoria, dizziness, and poor coordination. The high is short-lived, however, lasting only a few minutes, meaning the user must inhale the substance repeatedly to prolong its effect.

Inhalant abuse has negative short-term and long-term effects. In the short term, abusers may experience nausea, vomiting, and severe headaches. A telltale “glue-sniffer’s rash” around the nose and mouth may result from prolonged use. Long-term effects are serious and include damage to the liver, kidneys, and bone marrow; respiratory distress; and muscle wasting. Nervous system damage can result in deafness, permanent brain impairment, and paralysis.

Deep inhalation of highly concentrated solvents or aerosol sprays can cause heart failure within minutes. Known as Sudden Sniffing Death (SSD) Syndrome, this can occur from a single session of inhalant abuse by an otherwise healthy individual.

Designer Drugs

The 1980s and 1990s saw a surge in the use of so-called designer drugs, the popular term for illegal synthetic laboratory-made chemicals. These drugs, such as Ecstasy, methamphetamine, and LSD, cut across drug categories and made up a substantial proportion of the illegal drug market. The term designer in this case refers to a substance that was made in the laboratory, usually in an attempt to create an analogue of some better-known chemical. The imitation might be undertaken to make a drug cheaper, safer, more effective, or more readily available to a mass public, and the phrase often referred to legal pharmaceuticals. Its illegal meanings were emphasized in the 1980s, when law enforcement in the United States became concerned about the effects of synthetic heroins such as fentanyl.

Illegal designer drugs have aroused particular alarm because their production in secret laboratories makes it difficult to control them by normal means and because they present a grave physical and psychological threat to the young users often attracted to them. Some designer drugs are also far stronger and more dangerous than the drugs for which they serve as popular substitutes and pose a lethal danger of overdose.

The regulation of designer drugs posed legal difficulties for governments. Legislators in the United States were particularly concerned that while one substance could be banned another drug, one only marginally different from the banned substance, could remain legal. The United States Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 contained a Controlled Substance Analogue Enforcement Act (commonly called the Designer Drug Act), which prohibited synthetic drugs closely related to some better-known chemical.

America’s first wave of concern with designer drugs subsided in the mid-1980s, when crack cocaine became a major concern. Nevertheless, in the 1990s there were recurring fears regarding various synthetic drugs, especially Ecstasy and methamphetamine. Designer drugs, often associated with “rave” dances, became a major component of youth subcultures. In the late 1990s a new wave of concern focused on the so-called “date-rape drugs,” synthetic chemicals like GHB (gamma hydroxybutyrate) and Rohypnol, which some offenders have used to render their victims unconscious.

History of Drug Control

The first major national efforts to control the distribution of dangerous drugs were made in the 19th century in China, where an opium and cocaine trade had developed in the previous century. The Chinese government attempted to discourage opium importation and use, but the English East India Company, which maintained an official monopoly over British trade in China, made huge profits from the export of opium from India to China and did not want to give up its market. China eventually abolished this monopoly between 1839 and 1842, increasing tension between the British and the Chinese. Meanwhile, foreign merchants, including those from France and the United States, were bringing ever-increasing quantities of opium into China. Finally, the Chinese government required all foreign merchants to surrender their stocks of opium for destruction. The British objected, and the first Opium War (1839–42) followed. The Chinese lost and were forced into a series of treaties with Britain and other countries that eventually legalized the importation of opium into China.

International Controls

Throughout the 19th century the Chinese government considered opium an important moral and economic problem, but the country needed international help to regulate its trade. In 1909 United States President Theodore Roosevelt proposed an international investigation of the opium problem, and that year representatives of 13 countries met in Shanghai. The conference made recommendations that formed the basis of the first opium convention held at The Hague, Netherlands, in 1912. After World War I the League of Nations was given responsibility to supervise agreements regarding the trafficking of opium and other dangerous drugs. A further important development occurred in 1925, when further restrictions were placed on the production and manufacture of narcotics. Six other international conventions and agreements were also negotiated between 1912 and 1936.

In 1946 responsibility for supervising the agreements was transferred to the United Nations (UN) and to the World Health Organization (WHO). In 1948 the control system was extended to synthetic and natural drugs outside the scope of the earlier conventions. In 1953 an agreement was reached to limit and regulate the cultivation of the poppy plant and the production of, or international and wholesale trade in, and use of opium. Before this agreement became effective in 1963 the international control organs found a need to strengthen the existing treaties, and a Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs was drafted in 1961. This convention combined all of the earlier agreements into a comprehensive document, limited the use of coca leaves and cannabis to medical and scientific needs, and paved the way for the establishment of the International Narcotics Control Board. In 1971 WHO passed the Convention on Psychotropic Substances, which regulated hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD and required the submission of reports to the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs. Since then, international narcotics control arrangements have been a major focus of concern, especially for North American and European countries, which have tried to suppress trafficking by a variety of multilateral agreements. Such efforts led to the adoption in 1988 of the Convention against the Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, and in 1998 a UN General Assembly special session set as a goal the significant reduction or elimination of drug production by 2008.

National Controls

In the 1960s and 1970s the United States was perhaps the country most preoccupied with drug control. However, because the drug issue was a major concern in other countries as well, American policies were often internationally adopted. Many countries made the control of drugs a central concern of public policy, and they passed numerous laws and established criminal-detection agencies. By the beginning of the 21st century, for example, some 100 countries had either established official national drug policies or were developing them.

Early efforts in the United States to regulate drugs included the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914, the Opium Poppy Control Act of 1942, and the Narcotic Drug Control Act of 1956, which established severe punishments for drug-related offenses. For example, the sale of heroin to a minor was punishable by death. Heroin manufacture had been prohibited in the United States in 1924, but the 1956 law required that all heroin be surrendered to the government. The Drug Abuse Control Amendments of 1965 added controls over depressant, stimulant, and hallucinogenic drugs not covered under the other narcotic control acts.

Legal controls expanded dramatically in response to the increase in drug use among young people in the 1960s. In 1970 American drug policy was systematized by the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act. One portion of this measure, the Controlled Substances Act, created five categories into which a drug would be placed, depending both on its usefulness and its likelihood of abuse. For example, heroin was classified as a Schedule I drug, which meant that it was banned even for medical use beyond limited research, because its medical benefits were far outweighed by the substantial danger of abuse and addiction. Substances with more benefits and fewer obvious dangers were placed in less stringent schedules, so that minor tranquilizers, such as Valium, were placed in Schedule IV and antitussives (cough medicine) in Schedule V. Since 1970 much of the debate over U.S. drug policy has focused on whether certain drugs, such as marijuana, should be reclassified to allow their use for medical purposes.

The War on Drugs

Beginning in the 1970s, the United States launched a so-called “war on drugs,” a term first used by President Richard Nixon. The war gained strength under President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s and was exported abroad. The term symbolized an all-out effort to curtail drug use by punishing both suppliers and users. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy was established in 1988 by the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, and its director, who holds a cabinet-level rank, is popularly known as the “drug czar.” The war on drugs combined the establishment of law-enforcement agencies to combat drug trafficking, along with high-profile public campaigns against drug use, such as first lady Nancy Reagan’s famous “Just Say No” campaign. To control the supply of drugs, efforts were made to link aid to developing countries to their efforts to eradicate the production of drugs. Beginning in the 1980s, the United States established a “certification process,” through which the president would determine whether each of the 32 major producer or “drug-transit” (through which drugs traveled to the United States) countries were cooperating fully with the war on drugs. If a country failed to be certified, it could be ineligible for all but humanitarian assistance from the United States government. This policy produced mixed results. Though assistance to Colombia aided aggressive efforts to cut the production of cocaine there, the efforts actually increased production in neighboring countries such as Bolivia and have also caused environmental damage. In many areas of the world, particularly in Asia and Latin America, the campaign met resistance from poor local farmers, who could make much more money from cultivating illicit drug plants than legal crops. The drug war also stalled in some areas because of resistance by local warlords or terrorist organizations. Afghanistan’s hard-line Taliban government banned opium production there in 2000 and had virtually eradicated the crop by the following year. In 2001, however, the Taliban, which protected al-Qaeda leaders responsible for the terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001, were forced from power by a United States-led international coalition; by 2003, despite efforts by the new Afghan government and the international community, opium production had grown by nearly 20-fold over its 2001 levels.

Efforts aimed at eliminating the use of drugs in the United States focused both on strict penal solutions (prison time) and, to a lesser extent, treatment. By the early 21st century the U.S. federal government and state and local governments were spending some tens of billions of dollars annually in the war on drugs (much of which was spent on catching and punishing drug dealers and users), and it was estimated that about one fourth of those in the country’s state and federal prisons were incarcerated for drug offenses. However, in the 1990s drug abuse—which had fallen in the 1980s—increased, the cost of illicit drugs fell considerably, and it was estimated that only about 15 percent of heroin and 30 percent of cocaine shipments were intercepted by law enforcement, leading many observers to brand the war on drugs a failure. Critics of the war on drugs also pointed to the cost of maintaining the rising prison population, to the danger of dumping drug abusers in prison with hardened criminals, and to reports of corruption among law-enforcement officials.

Many officials began looking for other alternatives to the American model. In Switzerland, for example, habitual users of drugs are enrolled in so-called “harm-reduction” programs, which aim to punish people only for the crimes they commit against others rather than for what they put into their bodies. Switzerland has established centers that provide addicts with daily doses of drugs, even heroin, and clean needles to reduce the spread of disease. Focusing on the most severe addicts, the program has reduced crime and drug-related deaths and has helped users to gain employment. Elsewhere, harm-reduction programs in the Netherlands have taken a practical approach; the use of “soft” drugs (such as marijuana) is technically illegal but is tolerated as long as it conforms to strict regulations and does not cause a public nuisance. In the late 1990s and early 21st century, other countries in western Europe began adopting policies that focused more on the social welfare of users rather than on law enforcement, with some countries, such as Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, and Spain, even decriminalizing the use of some drugs. Though penalties have been lifted for individual users in some countries, most western European countries have severe penalties for drug trafficking; in Austria, France, Greece, Luxembourg, and the United Kingdom, for instance, a drug-trafficking conviction can result in life imprisonment. Despite the relaxation of laws on drug use in Europe, most countries, such as the United States, Russia, Sweden, China, Japan, and the Islamic countries, continue to focus on zero tolerance.

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